Archives for April 2016

Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 1, 2016
“C” Readings: Acts 15:1-2, 22-29 ● Rev 21:10-14, 22-23 ● Jn 14:23-29
http://usccb.org/bible/readings/050116.cfm
Living out the New Covenant
The readings that the Church sets before us for this … [Read more...]

Pastoral Approaches to a Growing Demographic

In the 2015 film, Brooklyn, there are a number of scenes in which young Eilis Lacey, a recent immigrant from Ireland, goes to several dances organized by her local church. There, she and her friends are courted by young gentlemen, one of … [Read more...]

How do Catholic schools best serve students who struggle with same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria (popularly called “transgendered”)? What should a school’s policies prescribe in order to prevent confusion, disputes and even litig … [Read more...]

A Faithful Student’s Guide to a Competing 20th Century Moral Theory

For years now in the post-conciliar period, the concept of the fundamental option—which some have likened to St. Thomas Aquinas’s notion of a commitment to an “Ultimate End” as the first principle of moral action (see Benedict M. Ashley, O.P … [Read more...]

It has been 50 years since the close of Vatican II, and certainly the Church has found great hope for the future in the Spirit-guided accomplishments of that great ecumenical Council. The Church has experienced authentic renewal in her … [Read more...]

The Sacred Liturgy is “an exercise of the priestly office of Jesus Christ” by which the sanctification of mankind is “signified by signs” “and is effected in a way which corresponds with each of these signs … it is a sacred action surpassing … [Read more...]

My Encounter with the Philosophy of Love of Dietrich Von Hildebrand
In the year 1958, I was a young atheist philosophy major about to give up on finding truth or love—as I couldn’t find either truth or love at the non-religious uni … [Read more...]

Holy Saturday has come and gone, but is it not the symbolic day of our Faith on earth? In the 70s, a popular mantra arose that we are an “Easter people.” Yet the abuses continue, dissent is institutionally maintained, the wicked go unc … [Read more...]

A Model for Marriage and the Universal Church

The world is facing a crisis: the family, seen as the fundamental unit of society since the days of Cicero and Aristotle, is now crumbling at its very foundations. But this is not only a crisis for the world, as the secularization of the … [Read more...]

From the turmoil over sexual orientation and gender identity, to the questions of abortion and euthanasia, the significance of the body for human identity and well-being is before our eyes as much as it ever was. In Veritatis Splendor, Pope … [Read more...]

St. Francis de Sales’ ideas on divine mercy contained in his Spiritual Conferences, the Treatise on the Love of God and the Introduction to a Devout Life, provide for a most worthy reflection this time of year. You may be content reflecting … [Read more...]

Using concepts derived from Aristotelian philosophy, Aquinas provides a tremendous insight into God’s essence by explaining how the latter is the sole Being whose “essence” and “existence” are one and the same: “... God is not only his own e … [Read more...]

Question: I am very confused about the removal of temporal punishment due to sin in the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. Some say no, but the Pocket Catholic Catechism by John Hardon, S.J., 1989, states: “Also the guilt and temporal p … [Read more...]